“You stinking slut,” he hissed. “He did not have it when he came into the church. I saw—”
A very soft scratching sound told of fingers trailing across her door. They paused. The dark figure turned half toward the door and raised the knife higher in threat, but it was displaced by his movement and no longer directly over her. Magdalene yanked hard on the coverlet, striking away the hand that reached down to gag her, and flung the quilt toward her attacker, rolling across the bed, away from him as soon as the cloth left her hands. The man staggered back, trying to free himself from the fabric, which had fallen across his arms, and Magdalene screamed aloud.
Sabina’s shock had not lasted long. She had stepped into Bell’s chamber and found his bed by the sound of his breathing. “Bell,” she said softly, touching his shoulder, “wake up.”
She was thrust away so violently that she staggered back and fell against the wall. As she righted herself, she heard the leather straps of the bed creak and then the scrape of metal against stone. He had grabbed his sword from the floor.
“Who?” Bell growled, coming off the bed.
Sabina stepped back, and then back again out of the doorway. She was about to say, “It is Sabina. Something is wrong. Magdalene’s door is closed.” But at that moment, Magdalene’s cry rang out. Sabina instinctively moved away from the doorway through which she knew Bell would erupt. She was not wrong about that, but it was not Bell who ran into her. She was hit from the back and left side and flung down on the floor.
As Magdalene shrieked for help, she also grabbed the candlestick from her table, prepared to use the burning candle or the stick itself to ward off the knife. However, the attacker did not run at her. The moment she cried out, he turned and started for the door—but he had forgotten the quilt. That had fallen to the ground and tangled his feet so that when he tried to get away, he fell flat on his face.
Magdalene was so surprised that for one moment she just stood staring; then a gust of semi hysterical laughter shook her. She put down the candle, which was about to fall from her hand, but, still whooping, was unable to make any other move. Less hampered than she by near hysteria, the man had managed to free himself of his encumbrance, fling open the door, and run out. Magdalene’s laughter stopped abruptly. He would escape, and he must be the murderer! He had confessed that he had seen Baldassare enter the church.
Magdalene shouted again for help and ran for the door, snatching up the coverlet on the way, only to stop, gasping. The corridor was a scene of chaos. Two bodies squirmed on the floor while Bell, naked as a jaybird but clutching his sword, stood over them. Ella, holding a bedrobe to her front, had stopped in her doorway and begun shrieking. Letice, wearing a bedrobe and with knife in hand, was emerging from her room. While Magdalene, openmouthed, watched, Sabina, also shrieking, wormed her way out from under the man, who was again flat on his face.
“He has a knife,” Magdalene cried in warning, but after that, unable to help herself, she began to laugh again.
The sound of laughter quieted Ella, who then stood staring from one person to another. Letice, seeing Bell was pinning the intended fugitive to the ground and that the erstwhile attacker was doing no more than shivering and crying, lowered her knife. Magdalene now reached down and pulled Sabina, who recognized her scent and touch, into her arms, where she fell silent. Still chuckling, she stood staring over Sabina’s head at Bell and, with an appreciative expression, ran her eyes up and down him.
“You strip very nice,” she murmured.
“You think this is funny?” Bell snarled. “If you don’t like rough sex, don’t take money from perverts.”
“Sex!” Magdalene exclaimed, thoroughly exasperated. “Is that all you think of? Is that creature dressed for sex? Don’t be a jackass. The only thing he pointed at me was a knife.” Then she shrugged. ‘This is no time for your fancies. I think we may have our murderer. He told me he knew Baldassare did not have the pouch when he entered the church, because he had seen him.” She turned to Letice. “Get some stockings, love, so we can tie him up.”
“No, I did not. I did not,” the man wailed. “I am at fault because it was by my design that Baldassare came to the church, but I did not kill him.”
No one answered that. While Bell stood guard, Letice fetched several stockings from the ragbag and then pulled off the man’s cloak. A sharp prod with Bell’s sword made the sobbing creature put his hands behind his back; Letice tied them fast, then his feet.
“This is the second man we have tied up in a week,” Ella said. “I do not like it.”
“No, there is no reason for you to like it,” Magdalene replied. “I do not like it, either. It is really nothing to do with us. It is because of the trouble in St. Mary Overy church, and I hope that is now ended. You can go back to bed, love.”
“But what has Richard de Beaumeis to do with the trouble in St. Mary Overy?”